John Locke

Bibliography

Biographies

Early works include Peter King, The Life and Letters of John Locke, new ed. (1858, reissued 1984), an amateurish work but valuable as a source for otherwise unavailable material drawn from the Lovelace Collection of Locke papers now in the Bodleian Library; H.R. Fox Bourne, The Life of John Locke, 2 vol. (1876, reprinted 1969), a detailed study based on secondary sources; Maurice Cranston, John Locke: A Biography (1957, reissued 1985), still the standard biography; Kenneth Dewhurst, John Locke, 1632–1704, Physician and Philosopher (1963, reprinted 1984), the only sustained account of Locke’s life in medicine; John Lough (ed.), Locke’s Travels in France, 1675–1679 (1953, reissued 1984), containing substantial extracts from Locke’s journals; and Jean S. Yolton (ed.), A Locke Miscellany (1990), a valuable collection of material otherwise difficult to locate on Locke from the 17th to the 20th century.

Commentaries

John W. Yolton, Locke: An Introduction (1985); and John Dunn, Locke (1984), provide general accounts of Locke’s life and work. Locke’s theory of knowledge is discussed in Nicholas Jolley, Locke: His Philosophical Thought (1999); and E.J. Lowe, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Locke on Human Understanding (1995). Surveys of Locke’s thought include Richard I. Aaron, John Locke, 3rd ed. (1971); John W. Yolton, John Locke and the Way of Ideas (1956, reissued 1996); John W. Yolton, A Locke Dictionary (1993); and Vere Chappell (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Locke (1994).

Political theory is covered in Geraint Parry, John Locke (1978, reissued 2004); M. Seliger, The Liberal Politics of John Locke (1968); John Dunn, The Political Thought of John Locke: An Historical Account of the Argument of the “Two Treatises of Government” (1969, reissued 2004), a survey of Locke’s political thought in the context of his intellectual environment; C.B. Macpherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke (1962, reissued 1988); John Colman, John Locke’s Moral Philosophy (1983); Ruth W. Grant, John Locke’s Liberalism (1987); James Tully, A Discourse on Property: John Locke and His Adversaries (1980), and An Approach to Political Philosophy: Locke in Contexts (1993); Richard Ashcraft, Revolutionary Politics & Locke’s Two Treatises of Government (1986), which argues for a more radical Locke than is usually supposed, and Locke’s Two Treatises of Government (1987); Ian Harris, The Mind of John Locke (1994); and Jeremy Waldron, God, Locke, and Equality: Christian Foundations of Locke’s Political Thought (2002).

Locke’s religious thought is covered in Nicholas Wolterstorff, John Locke and the Ethics of Belief (1996); John Marshall, John Locke: Resistance, Religion, and Responsibility (1994); and Alan P.F. Sell, John Locke and the Eighteenth-Century Divines (1997).

Discussions of Locke’s influence are found in John W. Yolton, Locke and French Materialism (1991); and Roy Porter, Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World (also published as The Creation of the Modern World: The Untold Story of the British Enlightenment, 2000).

Bibliographies

Jean S. Yolton, John Locke: A Descriptive Bibliography (1998), is the standard bibliography of Locke’s works to 1800 with some later printings. Jean S. Yolton and John Yolton, John Locke: A Reference Guide (1985), covers mainly secondary sources from 1689 to 1982; while John C. Attig (compiler), The Works of John Locke: A Comprehensive Bibliography from the Seventeenth Century to the Present (1985), tracks the various editions and translations of Locke’s writings and places them in historical context. Also recommended are P. Long, A Summary Catalogue of the Lovelace Collection of the Papers of John Locke in the Bodleian Library (1959); and Roland Hall and R.S. Woolhouse, 80 Years of Locke Scholarship: A Bibliographical Guide (1983). Ongoing bibliographic data may be found in The Locke Newsletter (annual; 1970–2000) and its continuation, Locke Studies (2001– ).